Grand Duchy of Würzburg

The Grand Duchy of Würzburg was a short-lived German state created during the Napoleonic reorganisation of the Holy Roman Empire. By the Treaty of Lunéville in 1801 the Bishopric of Würzburg was secularised, and in 1803 its lands passed to Bavaria. Ferdinand III, the former Grand Duke of Tuscany, was compensated first with Salzburg and then, under the Peace of Pressburg of 1805, with the territory of Würzburg, which Bavaria ceded in exchange for Tyrol. The grand duchy was proclaimed in 1806 and joined the Confederation of the Rhine, aligning it with Napoleon's system of client states. Würzburg itself, an old episcopal and university city on the Main, served as its capital. Ferdinand ruled with the title of grand duke and retained his Habsburg connections, but the state was never large or powerful. After Napoleon's defeat the Congress of Vienna restored Würzburg to Bavaria in 1814, ending its brief existence as a sovereign grand duchy and returning the region to the Bavarian crown.